alright gang, we need another win over the news mega this week! keep those numbers up and keep being trans as hell 
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Interestingly, I'm glad I didn't realize I was trans earlier than I did! I was like 27, partway through grad school, had good health insurance and a supportive environment (including the best partner ever, love that guy), my parents couldn't say shit, and I'd already spent years living as a woman, interrogating what womanhood meant to me, before deciding I didn't want it. (Don't want manhood either, my gender is "no thank you, I'm good".)
Sure, I maybe could have avoided some pain and awkwardness if I'd realized I was trans sooner. On the other hand, as cool as my parents are, I don't think they would have let me transition as a kid and that would have been a whole different level of hell I don't think I would have dealt with very well. And given the conservative area we lived in, the bullying would have been off the charts, and I was already bullied. No thanks.
Also, I kind of like the empathy and understanding of women that living for so long as one has given me. I know from personal experience what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominated profession, and if I'd transitioned earlier I wouldn't have had that same experience.
I'm glad I've transitioned, I'm much more myself now, but I don't mind having lived 27 or so years of my life as a woman, it was alright. A mask and a performance, yes, but an enlightening one that usually wasn't too constricting.
I feel that a lot actually. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, transitioning as a kid would've been outright impossible back then unless my parents would've moved the entire family to the Netherlands or smth. That was the only place where that was a possibility back then. And i seriously struggle to think of a way i could've dealt with knowing that i was trans in the early 00s. Like, i could see this working out in my favor if we're talking some time travel scenario where i go back knowing all that i know rn, but if i had to navigate the nightmare levels of medical gatekeeping that existed back then on my own, without prior knowledge, at a time where my sexuality automatically made me inelligible from receiving any gender affirming care, my life would've just been constant unsolveable dysphoria with no way out.
Same, I knew I was different, found out from the crying game basically..that similar people to me existed then spent the rest of the 90s trying to avoid the transphobia
I've seen you mention it a few times, what is the crying game?
It's a bad 90s movie that got way too much traction and sparked a ton of transphobia through the 90s.
It's a prime example of a shock twist surprise transgender reveal, plenty of them going back.. Ace Ventura parodies it.
Trans healthcare before informed consent was commonplace was soooo fucked. I'm glad my first therapist was willing to lie about "Real Life Experience" for me.
Informed consent still isn't commonplace outside of the US and Canada, btw. I still had to get letters from a psychologist to access any gender affirming care, the barriers are just lower now.